Friday, July 15, 2011

Tourist Prayer

Over many years, I've gleaned and gathered numerous “collectables”

which one day, may merit my review of and possible publication

...worthy of reading today!

Heavenly Father, look down on us your humble, obedient tourist servants who are doomed to travel this earth, taking photographs, mailing postcards, buying souvenirs and walking around in drip-dry underwear. We beseech you, O Lord to see that our plane is not hijacked, our luggage is not lost and our overweight baggage goes unnoticed.

Give us this day, divine guidance in our selection of hotels. We pray that the phones work, and that the operators speak our tongue, that there is no mail waiting from our children that would force us to cancel the rest of our trip.

Lead us to good, inexpensive restaurants where the wine is included in the price of the meal. Give us the wisdom to tip correctly in currencies we do not understand. Make the natives love us for what we are and not for what we can contribute to their worldly goods.

Grant us the strength to visit the museums, the cathedrals, the palaces, and if, perchance, we skip an historic monument to take a nap after lunch, have mercy on us for our flesh is weak.

Dear God, protect our wives from “bargains” they don't need or can't afford. Lead them not into temptation for they know not what they do.

Almighty Father, keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them to us. Save them from making fools of themselves in nightclubs. Above all, please do not forgive them their trespasses... for they know exactly what they do.

And when our journey is over, grant us the favour of finding someone who will look at our home movies and listen to our stories, so our lives as tourists will not have been in vain. This we ask you in the name of Conrad Hilton, Thomas Cook and the American Express ~